


Seams and Scars

by RhineGold



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Masturbation, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape Recovery, Sleepwalking, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-28
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-02-10 19:40:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2037492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RhineGold/pseuds/RhineGold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU from Justice. Sgt. Spencer decides on a different kind of death, one that scars and wounds Rush. After his lead scientist begins exhibiting dangerous behavior, Young tries to put the pieces back together as best he can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hollow

**Author's Note:**

> 'Hollow' was initially developed as a stand-alone story, but I can't seem to leave well enough alone. I wanted to write a story where Young isn't the bad guy (for once orz), and where Rush's vulnerabilities are brought to the surface in a horrible way.

Another day and another argument with Camile Wray. Young runs his hand over his face in a gesture meant to relieve the tension growing in his forehead. It does nothing, of course. 

It's a mercy when the radio crackles, but the tone of Greer's voice quickly kills any sense of relief. 

Dread builds as he responds. What can it be now and how the hell are they going to make whatever it is work?

Greer's voice is careful - low and even - with that crisp, tense edge that Young knows indicates stress. "...I'm in Sergeant Spencer's quarters. He did not show up for duty. I came to check on him."

Wray is pursing her lips as though this is some kind of trick to distract from her ever-growing list of concerns and demands. 

His frustration boils into his voice as he thumbs the radio again, making him feel immediately guilty. It's not Greer testing his nerves today. Except his hesitance and beating around the bush is frustrating and not at all like him.

"...I really think you should come down here, sir," Greer murmurs quietly. "And I think you should bring TJ."

~*~

_6 Hours Earlier_

Rush preferred to keep his distance.

Second-nature for some time now, no one really much seemed to notice or care. On Icarus, he'd arrived later than most, receiving quarters spaced further away the other civilians. On Destiny, isolation was a choice. 

Silence blanketed the hall as he stalked down the passageway towards his room. The low glow of the lights indicated the artificial night, and it occurred to him that he'd missed dinner again. 

He wondered if Becker would put aside a bowl for him, or if the ever-ravenous crew would see to every bit. Truth be told, Rush didn't care. Eating was secondary. Still, he thought, some sleep might in order. It had been a while by his admittedly inexact reckoning. 

Progressing through the deserted section of the ship, the corridor seemed different somehow. His shoes echoed on the metal floor, the sound uneasily loud in the quiet of the hallway. 

He realized the door to his right stood open just before the shadow lingering there moved. 

Rush yelped, twisting to the side, hitting the wall hard on one shoulder. Raising his own hands, he struck out, batting the larger ones reaching for him. Strong, brawny arms followed, caging him against the wall, and he tossed his hair from his eyes in order to regroup. 

The man - a sergeant whose name he had never bothered to learn - leaned in closer still, taking a deep breath that was almost a sigh. 

"What the hell are-" 

His indignant protests were silenced by a palm over his mouth, pinning his head to the wall. 

"Shut up," The man advised, voice as tight as the muscles in the arm Rush clawed at. "No talking."

He bit at the hand, kicking out simultaneously, and the man broke away with a howl. 

His attempt at flight ended abruptly as a wild punch caught him in the side, sending him spiraling into the opposite wall. He clutched at the frame of the open door, gasping as his side exploded into pain just above his left kidney. 

The sergeant was on him then, one hand around his throat this time, lifting him and drawing him forward, until their knees knocked awkwardly. 

"You're gonna regret that," He spat, mouth curling into an expression too cruel to be a grin. Rush yelped again, the sound shaky as he fought for air, as he was spun around roughly and pitched backwards into the dark room. 

He hit the ground on his side, elbow protesting as it raked the floor. He was reminded suddenly of arriving on Destiny that first day, and automatically reached for the glasses he no longer wore. 

Across the room, the door lock spun shut, sealing the space in darkness. 

~*~

The quarters on board Destiny had proven generous thus far, but with this many people, the space is small and claustrophobic. Young wipes his mouth with the back of one hand. He looks on with a neutral expression as TJ finishes. Looking up, she nods curtly to Greer. The Master Sergeant zips the remainder of the bag up carefully while the medic removes her gloves, letting them roll inside out before sealing them inside a narrow bag. 

She comes to stand at his elbow and he leans into her unconsciously, drawn to the heat of her body and the familiarity of her form. "I'm going to have to do that examination."

Both of them turn as one to look across the room where Camile Wray is kneeling in the floor, holding both of Nicholas Rush's hands in her own. She is speaking so softly they cannot hear her, but Rush doesn't seem to notice either. He continues staring at the wall, where a heavy red spatter has already faded into dark. 

~*~

_6 Hours Earlier_

His father had often watched him limp up the lane to their thin and threadbare home. Between pulls of beer, the elder Rush would shake his head, tongue clucking in disapproval, before offering one of his few pieces of advice towards his son. 'Don't make it any easier for them than you already do.' 

He tried not to make it easy. When the man bore him to the floor, he kicked and lashed out with everything he had, leaving bruises and welts in his wake. Unfortunately, just as it had been when he was a boy, his opponent was simply much bigger, stronger, and more experienced than he. His ribs ached where the man knelt, driving his knee harder against him, keeping him flat on his back on the floor. 

Rush bucked up with limited success, struggling to connect to the man, to slam their heads together, but the other man's height put him out of his reach even as he crouched over him. The sergeant caught both of Rush's arms in a rough grip, crossing them over his head. The snap of the zip tie being connected felt final and terrifying. 

"You don't even get it, do you?" The man asked, sounding almost lost himself. "No one does. No one sees what it's like... Day in and day out... We're dying here in this wreck and no one wants to say it." 

He caught Rush's chin in one hand, digging his fingers into his jaw until Rush opened his mouth to cry out. He could feel his face bruise under that hand and he wondered wildly if he meant to try to rip his jaw clean off. 

"And it's all because of you..." The man continued. "You brought us here. You fucked us over. You killed us all and they're never even going to find the bodies."

"You're insane!" He spat, panting for breath when the man finally released him. 

At that, the sergeant laughed, a long, drawn out sound that rose to too-high of a pitch before pattering off aimlessly. "Yeah. Yeah. And that's all you, too."

Rush gasped as he was caught by the arms and flipped onto his stomach with surprisingly little effort. Part of him wished now he'd allowed himself to be dragged into the Colonel's exercise efforts, though he doubted it would have done much good against this mountain of a man. 

The hand between his legs stunned him into stillness. The man groped him roughly, sliding his palm, warm and wide, across his ass and around, making him shudder and hitch his hips forward. 

"What the hell are you-" He was slammed down with a brutally efficient hand to the back of his head, making his nose ache from the force of his face hitting the cold metal floor. 

"I told you earlier not to fucking talk," The man said, voice strangely calm now. 

The hand returned, petting across his hip this time, before snaking around and fumbling with the zipper of his jeans. Sacrificing the hand holding him down, the sergeant unfastened his belt and jeans. Once his initial, paralyzing confusion had passed, Rush resumed his struggle, kicking with his legs and attempting to haul himself forward with his elbows. The floor felt too smooth and slick beneath him to give him much leverage. 

Suddenly the man pressed against him, covering his whole body, chest to his back, weighing against him like a rock. He could feel the man's boots, grinding against his own for a moment, and he fought to get air in his lungs as the man pressed him like dead weight. Finally, the man's goal became clear as he managed to kick off one of Rush's shoes before scuffing off the other the same way. Once he'd finished with his shoes, this gave him the freedom to strip Rush completely from the waist.

Things were happening too fast and for all his genius, Rush could not keep up with this. He flailed desperately when a knee, still mercifully clothed in the rough weave of the military uniform, pressed ruthlessly between his legs, biting into his bare thighs. 

The man's voice in his ear was thick and dark, twisted with a kind of resigned hatred that Rush had never heard before. "I'm going to make you scream, you little shit," He promised, chasing his brutal words with the feather-light ghost of a kiss.

~*~

When Young steps into his field of vision, Rush flinches. Ruefully, Young glances down at what parts of him have fallen into his line of sight - the dark of his military uniform. Grimacing, he kneels down so he is lower than the man sitting gingerly on the corner of the bed. Rush looks like a wet bird, huddled in the corner of a cage that's been battered around. 

Camile puts a hand on Young's shoulder but he ignores it. 

"I don't need you to tell me what happened here," He says quietly, trying to choose words that are diplomatic without being condescending. Once Rush is more alert and aware of his surroundings, he knows he will not appreciate any pity. "What I need to know is... What can I do, Rush?"

The man looks so small, perched there. He wipes his palms across his bare thighs. TJ had tried to cover him with a blanket, but he'd pushed it off almost immediately as though the weight of it against his skin had burned. The shirt preserves some of his modesty from those gathered. Young can see what is clearly a pair of bloody fingerprints peeking out from under his thigh. 

When he speaks, his accent is so thick and his voice is so soft that Young can't understand him. 

Finally sensing that he hadn't made himself clear, Rush tries again. "...What was his name?"

It hits Young like a punch in his gut. Rush has been brutalized and a man is dead in the floor and he doesn't even know his name. He had been thrown to the ground, split open, and bled; had picked up the sidearm in hands that are trembling even now; had put a bullet in the man's brain ...and he doesn't even know his name.

"...Spencer," He says finally. "Jordan Spencer." 

"He's dead," Rush says, in a tone that is not a question. 

"Yes."

"Well, that's fine then." He sounds relieved, sounds comforted. 

Camille's fingers tighten again and Young nods, rocking back on his heels to push to his feet. This time, when TJ gently places the blanket over Rush's shoulders, he doesn't shrug it off.


	2. Echo

The corridor is dark and endless. Still, he staggers onward, the only sound that of his own breathing - labored and loud to his ears. He can't stop moving. There is a shadow just past the corner of his eye, and if he pauses, it will move. He knows he cannot let it catch him. 

There is a high, whining sound somewhere nearby now. His throat hurts with the effort it takes to suck down each breath. The corridor twists and turns now. No lights, only smooth metal and dead air. He tries to out-pace the keening sound, to outrun the shadow. Each time his palm slaps against the door mechanism of another barrier, he feels it rattle up his elbow, to his shoulder, and into his very core. 

The shadow is just behind him now, and there is blood on his hands, smearing across the door, dripping down to the floor. He scrubs the back of one wrist across his mouth, and there is more blood there, everywhere. It is only then that he realizes the sounds he is hearing are falling out of his own mouth. He doesn't recognize the sound of his own voice. 

The floor is smooth and unyielding beneath his elbows and he wonders when he fell down to his stomach. The weight settles on the small of his back but he cannot look up, cannot turn towards the shadow. It is smothering him now, bending his back until it feels as though he might break.

_"...I'm going to make you scream, you little shit."_

 

...With a shriek, Rush flails, spinning off of the wall abruptly, disoriented further by the sudden contact. He sinks down into the floor, bringing his knees to his chin, wrapping both arms around himself. 

It is dark and he aches everywhere and for one wild moment, he thinks he sees a body lying across from him, missing half a face, but the corridor is empty except for him. He takes several long, deep breaths, trying to stop his chest from heaving. 

It is quiet here, apart from his ragged gasps. He realizes that he doesn't recognize this section of corridor, and that is very bad. He's never gone this far before. 

He promises himself he will stand up and start making his way back to the others. 

 

 

He lies.

~*~

He is still in the process of rubbing his face when he palms the doorswitch open, and this nearly causes him to run elbow-first into Sergeant Greer.

"What is it, Sergeant?" He doesn't bother to disguise the sleepy rumble of his voice this early in the morning. 

The careful way the other man pauses means this can only be about Rush. 

"Where is he this time?" He adds, curtailing whatever polite explanation the marine is constructing.

"That's just thing thing, sir. No one knows."

~*~

It takes four hours before James radios in with results.

Four hours of combing over every known part of the ship, and then some. 

This is not the first time Rush has gone wandering during the night, but it is the furthest he has gotten, and this time into a section still being assessed for safety. 

He knows all of this, but it doesn't stop Camile from hammering it in again and again. The one-sided conversation has rolled well into lecture by the time he looks up from his desk, keeping his chin balanced on his hand. 

"And?" He asks.

She repeats him, and he can hear the frustration cresting as she begins again, "Colonel Young..."

"I know Dr. Rush's condition is not... optimal. I'm asking what you expect me to do about it? Tying the man down to a bed seems less than conducive."

"I'm not suggesting that!" She snaps, and here are the crossed arms and the sharply jutting hip he has been waiting for. "What I'm saying is that, quite frankly, the man needs..."

"A keeper?"

She falls silent then, biting her lip. 

"If you're suggesting I assign someone to follow Rush, I can give you at least ten reasons why that's a terrible idea."

"I know that." Her voice is soft now, her eyes downcast in that way everyone gets when they don't talk about what has happened to their lead scientist. "...Lt. Johansen and I have discussed a -temporary- arrangement, where Dr. Rush is assigned to ... to share quarters with another member of the crew..."

"You want him to bunk up like at summer camp?" He tries to make it sound amused, but it falls flat.

She smiles faintly anyway. "Something like that."

"And who exactly did the two of you have in mind for this little camping trip?"

She bites her lip again and he lets his arm drop down to the desk. No way.

~*~

"Absolutely not."

Young resists the urge to put his face in his hands. Instead, he sits up straighter on the sofa, keeping both palms clasped loosely between his legs. It's hard to look authoritative while trying so very hard to be non-threatening. 

He lets the other man pace for a few minutes, ignoring the web of outrage and onslaught of pure Scottish syllables with no meaningful consonant sounds, before clearing his throat.

" _Rush_ ," he says quietly, and this catches his attention somehow, making him pivot so quickly his hair becomes dizzying to watch. "Rush, I'm not asking you. I'm telling you."

"Colonel Young!" He is poised to begin again, but Young fixes him with a steely gaze that immediately makes him bite his lip and take a step backwards. Rush always seems to find excuses to put distance between them, he realizes, even before. 

It's hard to look at Nicholas Rush sometimes without seeing a blood-splattered wall and finger-bruised thighs and he carefully schools his expression back into neutrality but he's certain some of the regret escaped given the way Rush's eyes have narrowed and hardened. 

"...I can't afford to lose you, Rush. Not for hours somewhere on the ship, not any other way. TJ thinks this is a solution and it's one we're going to try."

It sounds simple when he says it like that - direct, matter-of-fact. It isn't, and they both know it, but Rush nods anyway. He's too easily defeated these days, and Young hates that most of all. 

But they are going to try.

~*~

The first few nights, things are fine.

After a brief and rapid-fire argument, Young winds up sleeping on the bed while Rush takes the sofa. 

(If the first night ended with Young’s attempts to list reasons why swapping off would be the most logical being curtailed by Rush telling him with no hesitation where he could shove his logistics, only to flop bonelessly across the sofa with no room for further disagreement, well... Young considered that a kind of compromise. After all, there had been absolutely no shouting in the end.)

The sixth night, Young wakes groggily to the sound of the door being opened. He sits up, dressed only in his boxers and undershirt, and he knows there is no time, so he throws off the covers and follows. 

Rush is standing in the hallway, eyes open, gaze glassed over like a man on some kind of bender. He leans against the wall and the sound that leaves his throat is a cross between a whimper and a moan. It is inappropriately sexual and Young pauses before softly calling his name. 

There is no response, except Rush begins to move again, trailing one hand across the bulkhead as he glides down the hallway. He looks like a puppet being drawn on a string, so trance-like is his movement. 

It isn't going to be fun, but Young hurries after him, stepping in front of where Rush is just about to be. 

Rush slams into him as though he couldn't even see him, and that's when the screaming begins. Rush howls like a wounded animal, and Young, concerned about a scene and the humiliation the man would face in the aftermath, leans down and scoops Rush around the waist. Half-dragging, half-carrying, he manages to wrestle Rush back into his bedroom, trying to be gentle as he shoves him towards the bed.

Once the doorlock is spun and actually locked this time, he turns to find Rush sitting on the bed, flexing his hands on either side of his lap. His expression is doleful and his eyes seem more alert, though he keeps them trained down on his lap.

"Are you..." Young struggles to think of the words. "Yourself?"

"Who else would I be?" He asks quietly and his tone speaks of oceans of sorrow and Young's heart aches with it.

"You didn't get far," He says, sitting on the sofa where the blankets and pillow have been kicked aside. "Just out into the corridor."

"Thank you," Rush replies and that is something new, something Young never expected. Sincerity laced with humiliation, but Rush has given him his thanks and that is something so rare as to seem sacred.

"Don't mention it," He replies eventually, though he knows Rush never never will. 

"This is killing me." 

It sounds so final and so empty, and if Rush is still that wet bird in the cage, it seems that he is wilting within it, wasting away to nothing. The man barely eats, barely sleeps, and his trauma affects every aspect of his work (because Rush is always working).

"TJ says..." And it sounds inadequate to Young even as he begins.

"Bugger TJ and her optimistic shite!" He snaps.

They sit in a muted, angry silence for God knows how long, Rush combing a hand repeatedly through his hair, Young clasping his hands between his knees, thinking.

"The first time I killed a man, I didn't sleep for weeks," He offers quietly, and when Rush doesn't interrupt, he takes this as a good sign. 

"He was an alien, someone from another world, but he looked like you and me and somehow, it felt more real than anything. I've shot down planes, but they were shooting back. This guy... It was a stealth mission. He never even saw me. He looked young; looked healthy. And then he was a smear on the ground and everyone was moving and no one even watched him die except me. I was riveted in place. I killed a man and everyone just... moved on." 

Rush exhales as Young inhales and the combined sighing sounds have something near-identical to them. 

"And then you moved on too," Rush says finally.

"No." He rubs a hand over his sweaty, messy curls, leaning back against the couch cushions with a sigh. "Sometimes, I still dream about it. Even now, I'm seeing his face."

Rush turns towards him, and his posture seems to uncurl, shoulders twisting back down, legs losing tension. He cocks his head to the side like the way he used to on Icarus, listening and trying to fit in and be accepted. "...Then how do you live with it?"

"...Time. It's fucking cliche as hell, but time. What happened to you..." And the tension returns again, shoulders climbing higher and Young rushes to defuse that, "It wasn't like what I did. You acted in self-defense, Rush. It wasn't the same thing at all."

"When I walk I feel his weight on me," Rush offers finally, and this is the only time Young has ever heard him refer to that aspect of his experience. 

"He's dead, Rush. He can't hurt you anymore."

"He can't, but what about you? What about Greer, Scott, any of them?" Rush cries and the sound is brittle and broken. "I never wanted to even think that I could be... That someone could just..." 

"I know," He says, inadequate and sad. He'd been prepared for some violence on this miniature colony of a ship, but he never even wanted to think about such violations. Never wanted to consider that anyone here was capable of rape. 

And now Rush is damaged and there doesn't seem to be any way to stitch and soothe the wounds. 

As though he can read his thoughts, Rush says quietly, "I'm not broken. Just... cracked."

Young wants to touch him, wants to place a fatherly hand on his shoulder and squeeze, to give him a sense of safety and belonging that he knows Rush both craves and lacks. But he stays across the room on his sofa while Rush sits awkwardly on the bed, and neither of them say another word as the FTL light plays across the two of them like a kaleidoscope of unspoken things.

~*~


	3. Mutiny

When Young enters the room, gun in hand, he expects his rage to hold. He does not expect it to shift in rapid-fire spiral from surprise to betrayal to outright hurt.

Eli is hovering in the corner, looking stricken and pale. Camile Wray is standing firm and tall in the center of the room, her face as unreadable as a sphinx. And there, at the corner console, is Rush.

The man he has shared a room with for weeks now, whom he has soothed and even held on some nights after a particularly bad bout of sleepwalking. The man he currently swaps off with every other night - the man who sleeps in his bed.

"You did all this?" He asks and for a moment, Rush looks so ashamed and afraid that he almost forgets to put anger behind his words. Instead of hurt.

And then Scott comes slinging around the door frame, sidearm braced in both hands and it reminds Young to more firmly grip his own.

"Can we just... Not... With the guns?" Eli cries, holding up both hands as though he's been ordered to. Camile and Rush never move. 

For a moment, all Young can see is red, and Rush's wide-eyed expression, and he nearly misses the holster when he replaces his weapon at his hip. 

"You." He indicates Rush pointedly, "With me. Scott, please escort Ms. Wray to her quarters and make sure she stays there. I want our people back on this side of the ship and I want the civilians rounded up and sent back to their rooms. And someone find me TJ."

~*~

He _slams_ Rush up against the wall of the unused conference-style room, and Rush _goes_ with no sign of struggle.

"You think you can just-" He begins, but when Rush's face crumbles so does his resolve.

"It wasn't anything personal," Rush murmurs, accent strong, voice low. "We, none of us, signed up for a military dictatorship."

"You think that's what this is?" He snaps, but belatedly realizes that Rush is not too far off the mark. As usual.

He tries to hold on to his own anger - sharp, bitter rage, but Rush has spend the last two weeks sleeping and not sleeping on his sofa, in his bed, and even now he can see the toll of his experiences. Rush is still against the wall, even though the grip on his shirts has gone slack. He is taking deeper, slower breaths than is strictly necessary and Young knows that he is afraid.

Afraid of men in uniforms, men with brawn and guns and /control/. He knows the crew, the civilians, all murmur about Rush, about what he's been through and at whose hands. It's easy to see that fear solidifying into something organized. He doesn't want to see the logic behind mutiny, behind the concept of defying everything he's been taught and relied on over the years.

But these are civilians. Americans, even, for the most part. And, like Rush, they are afraid. 

Young steps back from the other man, aware not for the first time that they are nearly the same height, but Rush is slighter, thinner, and overall smaller. 

"Go to your room, Rush," He says quietly, feeling the headache brewing behind his eyes.

It's only after the man is gone that he realizes he doesn't know where Rush will go at all. 

*~*

Rush does not come back to Young's quarters. 

~*~

There is pain. 

It trails up his spine, into his ribs and radiates through his core. There is something unmade within him now, something lost and broken here on this slick and unyielding floor.

His whole body flinches away when the man leans over him, reaching for something just beyond the bed. There is a hiss that could have come from either of them as he is rolled onto his side and something heavy and cold is pressed into his still-bound hands.

Rush shakes and accepts the gun, pressed tight between his zip-tied wrists. Spencer leans into his space again, making his chest go tight, making him cringe away.

"Do it," the man snarls, spits at him. "Fucking do it, you little faggot."

For a moment, Rush doesn't understand, and then there is the man's face, pressed hard against the barrel of the gun and more spittle as his voice goes ragged and more angry. 

"You civilian trash, you little shit, you do this! You did this to all of us so you can damn well do it to me!" 

And then there is a hand, coiled with intent, and he is pressed down hard on his back, still gripping the gun. Pain flares through his lower body again and he knows he cannot take this. 

The man's body angles into his field of vision and Rush....pulls the trigger. 

The gun's recoil sends him sliding across the floor, and there is a long, terrible moment where there is a body with half a face left towering above him, but then Spencer falls and it is as though he has felled a giant. 

There is no space here now, no room. There is military khaki and an explosion of blood and viscera, but there is no air and no space and Rush is drowning in it, screaming hoarsely through a throat already sore from it. There is no air.

~*~

When he comes to, he is sitting in the corner of the observation deck. The lights and colours of FTL swirl brightly across the wide space and he takes several deep breaths to steady himself.

Young is seated at the table a few feet away, staring blankly forward, his chin in his hands. Rush curls his body away from him, hiding behind his hair, scrambling for the tatters of his dignity.

"You were... having an event, TJ would say," Young says, oh-so softly into the dark.

"I shot him in the face," Rush replied.

"...He raped you."

And the words are said, the ones everyone has always been very careful to step around, to dance and pirouette and never come out and say. It feels like a slap in the face and also like relief because at last someone has acknowledged the power of what has been done to him. The unmaking and the pain through his whole being, all the way up into his mind. Young is good at seeing through to the core of Rush, he has known for some time now, and it is no surprise that he is the one who delivers this key at this moment.

"I killed him and I didn't even know his name," Rush murmurs.

"I'd have done it," Young offers, his tone still off-handed and vague. "I'd have done it in a heartbeat."

Rush says nothing and the FTL swirls. The mutiny had failed completely, coming apart to nothing in their hands, like a zip-tie and some skin and the cold metal of a sidearm pressed into two fragile hands. Where Rush succeeded, he brought death. Where he failed... 

Colonel Young continued to stare forward, not ignoring Rush, but not pressuring him with the intensity of his gaze. He has come to know that Rush does not like to be stared at, does not like to be touched, even with a gaze.

Rush holds his hands over his knees as though they are still bound and struggles not to cry. He wonders if he will ever feel like his hands are free - of the phantom sensation of plastic bindings and the metal of that gun. He wonders if Young will ever trust him again. He is too frightened to ask. Instead, he slumps further into the corner. They remain in their frozen poses, a tableau of silence and regret. 

When Young speaks again, he says only "Things will be different from now on."


	4. Quiet

Rush is not allowed to go to the Eden planet.

The risk is too great, Young decides. Though he wanders less and less now, there are still nights where Rush leaves the bed and stumbles, glassy-eyed and unseeing, down the corridor before he can be stopped. To do so on a foreign planet would be disastrous. And so he is left behind, much to his own personal ire. Left behind with Young.

There is an uneasy truce between them. They share the bed now, Young burrowed under the covers and Rush sleeping atop them with no concern for his clothes or any comforts. At least he takes his boots off, Young thinks.

They never speak of the mutiny, nor the ugliness of their argument afterwards. Young can recall the rush of breath against his jaw and the way the other man had folded beneath his wrath. The panic attack later that night hangs over him like a shroud of guilt. He mourns for a time when Rush would have dug back, shouted and snarled. This new Rush is too quite, and gives too easily. It is not what he'd ever imagined he'd experience and he realizes it is nothing that he wants. The idea of a soft, compliant Rush is something that, once upon a time, he would have wished for with all his heart. That weighs on him too - the price of his desires.

~*~

He seeks Rush out, more often than not. There is something comforting about being able to see the man, safe and whole, with his own eyes. Rush does not like it, but he doesn't really argue either. Another stab at Young's heart.

They sit quietly one afternoon on the observation deck, Rush turning a piece of wood over and over in long, deft hands, swirling a knife over the bit until a shape begins to form - a horse head, the start of something complex and intricate. He watches Rush create a chess set from nothing with a quiet fascination.

Finally, Rush seems to notice his staring, though he accepts it in stride. "You stay around often these says," He says lightly, keeping his head down.

"Yeah, well," Young disseminates, heat suddenly colouring his face. He feels caught out, though only a blind man could miss the intensity of his gaze.

"Why are you doing this, Colonel?" He asks, never lifting his eyes from the wood he is carving. Very carefully, he says, "Is this about my ...injury?"

"Why does everything have to have an alternative motive for you, Doctor Rush? Why can't I just enjoy the pleasure of your company?"

Rush snorts openly at that. "I think you're still feeling guilty and have come to protect the weakest member of your herd."

"Is that what you think you are? The weakest member of the herd?"

"Obviously."

"Rush... What happened to you wasn't about weakness. It was about power, but not weakness."

"Yes, well." Rush audibly clicks his teeth together and that seems to signal the end of his willingness to speak.

"So could you shut the hell up so I can get some work done?" Young jokes, trying to keep from falling flat, opening his file of papers. Rush is a cipher as he continues his carving. They work in quiet silence. 

~*~

Weeks go by, in this truce of quiet understanding. Rush never creeps under the covers and Young never ventures outside of them. It is strange to be seen in his boxers each night and never seeing a stitch of the other man's skin, but Young understands his need to remain armored in his clothing. Rush feels vulnerable all of the time, particularly when he sleeps. 

Sometimes Young watches him, telling himself he is merely checking in on him, and Rush's frown never seems to vanish, even in slumber. A perpetual motion machine of annoyance and fear, he thinks to himself. Rush is hard and never soft, not even when he is defenseless.

One night, Young wakes and Rush is not there. 

He sits up in the darkness of the room, instantly alert, wondering why he never heard the doorlock spin open. Then he realizes it is because Rush never left the room.

On the sofa a few feet away, Rush lies curled on one side, shuddering and making soft noises that sound like half-hitched breaths. He nearly swings his feet out of bed, wondering if this is some sort of flashback, some kind of nightmare he should interfere with, when he realizes with a start that it is not that sort of thing at all.

Rush makes another series of sounds, and there is a light sound of flesh on flesh, making Young's heart stutter and his face burn bright with embarrassment. He has discovered Rush in the state of something private; a need he never even considered a man like Rush might require.

There is a soft keening sound, needy and quiet in the darkness of the room, and then there is only the heaviness of Rush's breath.  
He tries to lay back down against the pillows, but the slither of fabric gives him away, and he knows that Rush knows.

"Enjoying yourself, Colonel?" His voice is icy in the dark and Young's face burns brighter.

"You left the bed," He says finally, stupidly. He often feels stupid around Rush, watching the man run circles around the rest of them, never inviting anyone close enough to learn the steps of his dance.

He wonders why Rush hadn't just left the room entirely and he realizes he hadn't wanted to risk waking him. And then again, where would he go?

With a snarl, Rush sits up, legs swinging off the side of the sofa. He looks neatly done up in his jeans now, but his hair is sticking up in the back and clinging to his unshaved jaw on the right side.

"I'm going to get a shower," He announces, voice still dripping venom.

Young musters the composure to respond, his voice betraying none of his humiliation at the circumstances. "If you're not back in 30 minutes, I'm coming to look for you."

"Yes, yes; you do that," He snipes, and then he has crossed the room in two long strides, not a run but near to it, spinning the doorlock with impatience. Young has a feeling that if he could slam the door shut, he would.

So Rush is as human as the rest of them, he thinks. It's been months since he's indulged himself with his own needs, he realizes. Ever since they've begun sharing a room, he's been unable to find any release with his own hands. It's a wonder he isn't as tightly wound as Rush perpetually seems to be. 

It surprises him when he takes stock of his own body and finds himself half-hard. He's never been one to get off on humiliation, but it seems like his tastes have changed here on Destiny. Reaching down, he wraps one hand around himself, sighing at the familiar pressure. If Rush can see to his own needs, he decides, it isn't unfair for him to follow suit.

He thinks of Emily, her soft curves and grey eyes, the scent of her shampoo and her legs wrapping around his waist. It's a familiar image, one he knows as intimately as anything. But something is different tonight. Instead of the soft panting he knows his wife makes during lovemaking, his mind conjures a different sound - one deeper and quieter, one he has just heard moments before.

Young stills his hand, still gripping himself tightly, trying to shake the sound from his mind. Instead, he imagines his free hand tangling, not in Emily's soft blond locks, but darker, stringier hair, hair that he has touched only once before. Rush's hair had felt soft beneath the palm of his hand as he'd rubbed the back of his head in a friendly gesture, but it is not friendship he is considering now.

The most surprising thing is how natural the fantasy seems. He knows the small sounds Rush makes when he is frightened, and it is easy to translate those into sounds of excitement, sounds of desire. He has felt the man's warmth beside him and felt his own arms around his waist, pulling and lifting him out of the hallway and back towards the bed. 

It seems to take no time at all, and he is spilling into his own hand, feeling as though his own body is unspooling through his hips. It really has been too long, he realizes. And then it hits him like a ton of bricks. He has just masturbated, for the first time in months, to the thought of _Rush_.

"...Fuck me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry about the delay. I've been ill again and my writing muse vanished without a trace. 
> 
> I'm thestorieswesay on tumblr. Come by and say hi? Or send me prompts, comments, ideas, idk.


	5. Cold

There is hot breath on his face, making it hard for him to take in his own. Cold metal is being pressed into both hands, but the grip is awkward the way both wrists are tethered together. He fumbles it a little and the man above him snarls. 

The gun is so cold in his hands. The floor beneath his knees is warm and there is some slickness there that can only be blood. He has been trained to fire guns, trained for away missions to foreign planets and uncharted locals. Things are foreign and uncharted now.

The gun is so cold in his hands. 

He feels as though he has to close his legs, has to get to his feet, has to run away. There is so much dirtiness here in this room. The man above him won't allow it. He refuses to give him space even though he is drowning in the proximity. He has to run, can't the other man see that?! 

The gun is so cold.

"Do it, you little faggot," The words leave spit on his face, in his hair. A hand moves from his thigh, where he didn't even realize it has been all this time. The fingers of the hand shove down and deeper, towards that center and all that hurt, and it becomes a reflex to jerk away. 

The gun goes off in his hands. 

He fires, almost by accident, and the blast blows through the man like a hammer through paper. More red splatters around them, on the walls, on the floor, and all over himself.

The man wavers on his knees, leaning horribly forward before his knees buckle and he tumbles backwards into the wall. The wall is painted red and bits of skin and other things pepper the ghoulish sight.

The gun is warm in his hands.

...Rush wakes up with a soft cry, sitting straight up in bed.

Young doesn't stir beside him and for that he is grateful.

~*~

Rush dreads going back to sleep. He throws himself into work, ignoring the complaints of his body and his coworkers. After all, there is always much to do, and he is more than willing to throw himself at it.

The appointment with TJ is a disaster. She checks the stitches and even though she is as gentle as a feather and most of the stitches have vanished, he still screams once and cries for a few minutes short of an hour. She counsels him to sleep more, commenting on the dark circles under his eyes, and it is only when she threatens to sic Camile on him that he tells her he will acquiesce.

After dinner, Young is standing in the doorway of the mess, and wordlessly, he and Rush fall into an even step, heading down the halls to the commander's quarters. If other people on the ship think their sleeping arrangement is queer, no one comments on it. It is at least less embarrassing that way.

As they prepare for bed, Young strips down as usual and Rush does nothing more than toe off his shoes. Young, more bare and vulnerable looking, crawls under the covers, while Rush, still fully clothed, lays carefully on top of them. It is a simple, chaste arrangement. Rush doesn't really mind it, for all of his fussing. It can be comforting to have someone there when he wakes from another nightmare. 

When he falls into a light and tangled sleep, he twitches some on the covers as a dream overtakes him. This dream is different, bright and glittering, all dressed in white as he struggles to lift a woman over the threshold of their home. They've lived here for two years, but it feels fresh and new as she turns to let him unzip the back and unlace the corset of her dress. 

Gloria.

She is so beautiful in his arms that he can barely stand to look at her. Her arms are slim but strong, calloused fingers brushing the hair away from his throat as she leans in for a kiss. It feels sinful and blissful and he ushers her up the stairs into the bedroom before he can fall apart under her hands.

His glasses hit the nightstand harder than he should like, but he's too busy with the white fabric that blocks his way to care. Gloria blurs softly around the edges as she finally slips her arms free of the dress...

...Rush, with a sharp inhalation of breath, sits straight up in bed.

Young doesn't stir beside him and he sighs in relief.

Gently, very gently, he edges his way off the bed and to his feet. Young shifts slightly but doesn't wake, so he crosses the room on socked feet, moving over to the sofa.

The unfamiliar sensation stirring in his gut and lower is making him reach and unfasten his pants, clandestine and quiet, trying not to make a sound as he tugs his jeans. When his hand slips into his pants, he nearly sobs with the sensation.

Gloria is as perfect as ever, smelling of roses and a hint of something soothing and sweet. Her body against his is perfect, fitting against him like a supple glove, neatly nestling her body into his hollows. 

It doesn't take long to lose himself in the memory of rich, gently curling hair, and strong, soft hands. Gloria is a treasure around him and he moans with the memory of it, letting his hand glide through his pants at the sweetness of the recollection.

It's only as he's finishing that he feels it - the sharp, shattering memory of another hand, squeezing his limp flesh. _"Don't you like this, you little faggot?"_ His orgasm is robbed of pleasure by the phantom pains along his stitches and over his wrists.

It is then, in the quiet, when his breathing is soft and low, shoulders still shivering in the darkness, that he hears it. The low sound of the bedclothes slithering. 

"Enjoying yourself, Colonel?"

~*~

After fleeing the room in a humiliated rush, he finds himself in the showers. Deserted at this time of night, he strips down and stands beneath the mist sprays. Leaning a fist and his head against the walls, he lets the mist bead and rivulet around and over him.

His body feels so cold, like the barrel of a gun.


	6. Almost

It becomes so unforgiving that it nearly drives him mad. He sees Rush now and nothing but Rush - he notices his hands, his hair, his wide, dark eyes. Rush moves constantly, fidgeting and hugging his own shoulders, and typing restlessly on the consoles. It becomes downright voyeuristic the way Young watches him.

These things started as a night gone wrong, thoughts crossing in a haywire haze, confusing his lead scientist (and bed partner) with his wife in his dreams. Now it is a full-blown obsession with the man, stalking him through the halls and longing after him like a love-sick puppy.

Rush doesn't give any indication that he has noticed.

He continues to work as he always has, at least ever since the incident, jumping at loud sounds but always moving and working and keeping the ship afloat, as it were. It occurs to Young how indispensable Rush is - how much he has come to rely on the man for so much on this vessel. He wonders if these thoughts are coloured by his infatuation.

And that is all it is, he tells himself - an infatuation. One that will pass soon and be done with, and he will shake off these thoughts and never think of Rush romantically (and sexually) again.

Surely.

~*~

It's hard not to notice.

Young follows him almost constantly these days, and he cannot, for the life of him, figure out why. Protecting the weakest member of his herd? Has there been some threat against him that he is hitherto unaware? He doesn't ask and Young doesn't tell, a thought that amuses him somewhat.

But he notices Young watching him, loitering in the mess or the apple core, just watcing him, under the guise of watching something or doing something else. After all he has been through, he can tell easily when there are eyes on him.

Sometimes he feels safer knowing Young is there - no one will touch him, no one would dare hurt him, with the commander of the mission lingering over his shoulder. Until it somehow clicks in his head that the thing he might have to fear is Young himself. 

He brushes those thoughts away - Young is a simple, noble man - he couldn't be capable of the things that Spencer had done. To do so would be contrary to his nature - he was too gentle, too caring, too emotional. And so he told himself as he lay down to sleep each night, that Young's steady breathing beside him was comforting, not frightening. He convinces himself that Young is safe, that he is strong and can protect him and nothing, nothing else. It makes him almost fond of the man, and he almost looks forward to falling into that gentle, uninterrupted sleep.

Almost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was not worth the wait, but this story is not dead!


End file.
